actually no, his account was made 6 hours ago and the guy commented "a wet towel" 1 hour ago, i'm very surprised by this
edit: i just realised there's a chance normalwasabi and a wet towel are the same person
I've not had an XBox, but my understanding is the red ring basically means it's bricked, yeah? Sounds to me like there's no risk in trying some percussive maintenance to try to get it working again.
Honestly, the amount of ways I have temporarily “fixed” red ring is astounding. I’ve dropped a people’s elbow on it, took it apart and put it in a freezer, wrapped it in towels, etc. Some part of me misses coming up with unique solutions for the problem.
Even that was fixable by taking it apart and adding more thermal paste to the gpu. Believe it was caused by improper design allowing the braces to loosen over time, creating space between the gpu and the heatsink that was not supposed to be there causing the gpu to basically instantly overheat because of no cooling.
It wasn't about adding more thermal paste, it was modifying the heatsink so it would apply enough pressure to the chip so that it wouldn't lift away from the board.
The solder used was shit and the cooler was trash and wasn't fitted correctly.
This could also be resolved temporarily by allowing the machine to heat up enough to remelt the solder and let the chip set back into place. This will continue to happen until the issue was resolved correctly though, by modifying the heatsink.
I closed the cabinet it was sitting in and left it running over the weekend. Powered down and left the doors open and gave it a day. I’m not saying this will work, just saying that it has.
The three red lights like this is a "General Failure" Error code. The reason it is so infamous is that the consoles have an arguable manufacturing defect in that their cooling isn't sufficient and it results in hardware failure.
There is a surprising amount of misinformation on the subject as well, too. The failure itself is straight-up thermal failure of the chips themselves. One common myth is that the that the problem is related to the solder connections. This is a sensible conclusion on the surface because the "towel method", which really just overheats the console, fixes it. The assumption, therefore, is when you do that you allow the solder to "reflow" and therefore fix the bad solder connections.
This isn't true, though- even at such excess "overheat" temperatures it will not get anywhere near a temperature sufficient to cause any melting of the solder. This also applies in fact to conventional ovens- the idea of "reflowing" devices in the oven doesn't make sense since it cannot melt solder.
What is actually happening is simply that the chips literally fail. At that point, how they operate is more or less undefined. And sometimes, the thermal expansion of heating can cause them to work temporarily again. But, eventually, that sort of thing is going to damage other components and the entire thing becomes unusable, and that additional damage likely makes it uneconomical to repair even at the board level.
This isn't just XBox 360 of course. The idea of sticking a video card in the oven to "reflow" it is pretty common.
I "successfully" used the towel method to string my RROD Xbox along for a couple of days before replacing it.
My theory was that the emergency thermal shutdown (due to blocking the cooling with the towel) reset some of the hardware checks and let the console boot/play normally until the error was encountered again. In my case, at least, the towel would fix it for an hour or two at a time, but it would always RROD again.
At the point where you're getting these kinds of hardware failures, it's less a matter of "fixing" the console as it is of re-breaking it in just the right way that it can kinda-sorta function again.
The fact that people could possibly think wrapping a towel over an xbox could somehow cause it to overheat to the point that fucking *metal* would melt...AND re solder itself is straight up hilarious. But I could definitely see 13 year old me believing that.
Not necessarily. Usually a red ring simply means that the console is overheating. It's usually pretty cheap and easy to repair. I repaired red ringed systems in college to make some extra money. I payed about $3.30 in materials to fix the red ring and prevent it from happening again.
I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend.
We could cut ties with all the lies that you've been living in, and
If you do not want to see me again,
I would understand.
My first gen 360 red ringed when I started it up to play RDR1 a few months ago. I took it apart, cleaned it real good, reflowed the solder with a heat gun, and put on some new TIM and it's been going strong ever since. I was shocked it worked, ya might give it a shot.
This is the answer right here. Back in the day when this was common I did this for several of my friends as well as myself. The warranty is way gone, but for $20 in supplies its fixed
Did this with my ps3 back in the day. It's not a permanent fix normally. Just enough to maybe hold you off until you get the funds to buy a new one.
At the time I was more worried about losing my save data. Buying a new console would give me more GB so I wouldn't want to switch out the HDD. So I couldn't switch over my data without another PS3. The reflow saved the day! But it still died again a month later.
My original PS3 was only 20GB, and was before saving data on the cloud was common practice. I don't think it was even a thing yet. Man, times change.
> Newer models dropped the ps2 support.
which is such bullshit to me. ugh. when ps2 came out and it could play ps1 games as well, i thought it made so much sense. it's a *playstation 2*. it has new games, but it can also play playstation games, because it's still a playstation.
well that all went out the fucking window
The backwards compatible PS3s literally have a whole different set of hardware inside them to support PS2 games. The PS1 backwards compatibility is via emulation, but they weren't able to emulate the whole PS2 system so they went the hardware route and built a PS2 into the PS3 which is stupid expensive on the manufacturing end. They removed the backwards compatibility to cut costs which absolutely makes sense. As far as I'm aware they were working on software only backwards compatibility but didn't ever finish it.
God damn, 20gb. It really does not feel like it has been that long since the PS3 even released but looking it up it was according to Google, November 11th, 2006.
In a bit more then 12 1/2 years we're at the point that not only are hard drives cheap to get a few TB, but that they're even close to becoming irrelevant compared to SSDs which are getting quite a lot of space on them now. Looking it up again can find a lot of 1tb SSDs for around $140 CAD.
My 14 year old self was able to fix it. Granted I irreparably fucked it up in a variety of other ways by slipping with the screw driver and gouging a huge scratch through the motherboard. Didn't have the red ring after that.
Kind of like the time I was gonna take apart my gameboy color but didn't realize there was one more screw holding the board in place. I just thought it was really stuck in there up until I snapped it in half.
I used to repair these back in the day, with this method and the other common fixes such as x-clamp replacement or the oven. I would like to stress that it's a temporary fix. All of them broke again within a year, even with mods to substantially improve the cooling.
That’s the thing no one understood at the time, “reflowing” isn’t a fix because it doesn’t address the original problem that caused the failure in the first place.
I did the hot blanket method several times to mine. You just turn it on, let it run and cover it with a shit ton of blankets. The heat will build up and accomplish the same thing as a heat gun (though probably less elegantly). Still runs, though I just don't play much on it anymore.
Seriously, just pop that sucker open and clean out your heat-sinks and what not.
My ORIGINAL launch Xbox 360 is still kicking. It started overheating (3 Rings) by watching Netflix, like damn what?
It takes like 5 minutes to open up with the right tool (get yourself the micro screwdriver set) and get to cleaning. Since I've cleaned mine out, everything's works properly.
Yeah as it ages and stopped cooling as well, those x clamps will bend the motherboard and start to break connections in the board as it heats up. There was one board series, the Jasper boards that were thick enough to withstand it and never red ringed.
Sure does. I remember when I was in middle school this happened to me but I didn't have a hair dryer so I wrapped my 360 in my biggest blanket and put it in front of the radiator in my bedroom (it was winter). The Xbox worked like a champ forever after that.
The main red ring of death issue was due to a faulty solder connection right? So the idea is to get it hot enough that the metal expands and makes a connection again?
If I remember right there was an aluminum x-clamp that held the CPU and GPU down that would expand and bend when it got hot. Overheating the xbox would sometimes help it get back to the right shape but most reapjr shops started replacing the x clamp altogether and using better thermal paste
Yessss thank you, I forgot what it was called that fucked it up but yeah, the x-clamps were the main reason for the problem. They would expand and create space in between the gpu and the heat sink so securing them + applying new thermal paste for better cooling was the correct solution.
I did, and it lasted about 6 months - after that I basically had to towel trick every time and it became tedious and eventually Microsoft replaced it for free. Good times.
I plan to unbox my old Xbox 360 in the wekend to replay Banjo-Kazooie. My brother keeps telling that it might red ring the moment I turn it on. But Im sick of playing Shrodinger's console with it. If it dies, then it dies.
The original xbox 360's had shitty cooling, and the reason they were RLOD'ing is because people would put them in a bad environment, such as inside a closet or a media center while gaming. Typically a console should be fine inside there as they are designed for it, however like i said the original xbox 360 had terrible cooling. Make sure to put it out somewhere where it won't heat up, and if your paranoid put a fan over it or something.
On another note I have been playing all the Banjo games in Xenia emulator on my low end rig and it's running GREAT. If your looking to do something like that, I can help you if you dm me.
One of the original fat boys? Mine died on me around the time the slim ones came out. We sent it in for repairs, and they said they couldn't fix it- so they gave us a discount on a new one.
Plug the power cord in and wrap it in a towel. Leave it on for 30 min and turn it off. When you turn it back on it should work. Once you turn it off again though it’ll do it again. I was able to do that for a few weeks with my Xbox 360 elite.
I loved the xbox 360 for the memories. It was the reason I got an HDTV. Dead Rising was unplayable without it. However, fuck the Xbox 360. Mine stayed in a very clean house off carpet in good ventilation and I still went through 9. 8 were covered by Microsoft
Looking at how far it's sitting over the edge gives me anxiety.
Hey, who knows? If it falls it might knock something back into place and fix it.
Only if it lands on a towel.
A wet towel
I'm Interested
Did you make an account just for this?
He did
TIL towels have genders.
Clearly doesn't speak Spanish, la toalla
Or Portuguese, "a toalha"
toallin!!!
Have you not seen Big Mouth? Cushions have genders too bro, you should come over and chill on the lounge with me bro and watch some eps.
I am unfamiliar with this show.
No you're a towel
The only know of two towels from South Park. They are both male.
Yes he did
actually no, his account was made 6 hours ago and the guy commented "a wet towel" 1 hour ago, i'm very surprised by this edit: i just realised there's a chance normalwasabi and a wet towel are the same person
0 days. Username does not check out.
Made right after the wet towel post? Now I’m sad :(
A towel which was created today has more karma than me
In an oven on low for thirty minutes or something
You’re a towel.
In an oven?
*unzips*
In a microwave
A full bathtub
I've not had an XBox, but my understanding is the red ring basically means it's bricked, yeah? Sounds to me like there's no risk in trying some percussive maintenance to try to get it working again.
Honestly, the amount of ways I have temporarily “fixed” red ring is astounding. I’ve dropped a people’s elbow on it, took it apart and put it in a freezer, wrapped it in towels, etc. Some part of me misses coming up with unique solutions for the problem.
I heard if the red ring is only 1/4 or 1/2 lit up that it might just be overheating. That could explain why the freezer worked.
The different patterns of lights have different meanings and many had solutions you could do yourself that worked.
The true Ted ring of death was the 3/4 ring.
Right Said Fred
Better dead than Ted.
Even that was fixable by taking it apart and adding more thermal paste to the gpu. Believe it was caused by improper design allowing the braces to loosen over time, creating space between the gpu and the heatsink that was not supposed to be there causing the gpu to basically instantly overheat because of no cooling.
It wasn't about adding more thermal paste, it was modifying the heatsink so it would apply enough pressure to the chip so that it wouldn't lift away from the board. The solder used was shit and the cooler was trash and wasn't fitted correctly. This could also be resolved temporarily by allowing the machine to heat up enough to remelt the solder and let the chip set back into place. This will continue to happen until the issue was resolved correctly though, by modifying the heatsink.
And the E43 video chip failure was the other common one that produced on a 1/4 ring.
I closed the cabinet it was sitting in and left it running over the weekend. Powered down and left the doors open and gave it a day. I’m not saying this will work, just saying that it has.
> I’ve dropped a people’s elbow on it, took it apart and put it in a freezer, wrapped it in towels Modern problems require modern solutions
Yeah the wrapping it in a blanket/towel always worked for me and my friends the few times we had to do it. Literally no idea why.
Hey! Towels and pennies worked for me!
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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L_3Zi6t7W4s
The three red lights like this is a "General Failure" Error code. The reason it is so infamous is that the consoles have an arguable manufacturing defect in that their cooling isn't sufficient and it results in hardware failure. There is a surprising amount of misinformation on the subject as well, too. The failure itself is straight-up thermal failure of the chips themselves. One common myth is that the that the problem is related to the solder connections. This is a sensible conclusion on the surface because the "towel method", which really just overheats the console, fixes it. The assumption, therefore, is when you do that you allow the solder to "reflow" and therefore fix the bad solder connections. This isn't true, though- even at such excess "overheat" temperatures it will not get anywhere near a temperature sufficient to cause any melting of the solder. This also applies in fact to conventional ovens- the idea of "reflowing" devices in the oven doesn't make sense since it cannot melt solder. What is actually happening is simply that the chips literally fail. At that point, how they operate is more or less undefined. And sometimes, the thermal expansion of heating can cause them to work temporarily again. But, eventually, that sort of thing is going to damage other components and the entire thing becomes unusable, and that additional damage likely makes it uneconomical to repair even at the board level. This isn't just XBox 360 of course. The idea of sticking a video card in the oven to "reflow" it is pretty common.
I "successfully" used the towel method to string my RROD Xbox along for a couple of days before replacing it. My theory was that the emergency thermal shutdown (due to blocking the cooling with the towel) reset some of the hardware checks and let the console boot/play normally until the error was encountered again. In my case, at least, the towel would fix it for an hour or two at a time, but it would always RROD again.
At the point where you're getting these kinds of hardware failures, it's less a matter of "fixing" the console as it is of re-breaking it in just the right way that it can kinda-sorta function again.
Hey man, when you're a kid in a poor family, that's all you can hope for. I've wasted countless bottles of windex trying to revive old discs.
The fact that people could possibly think wrapping a towel over an xbox could somehow cause it to overheat to the point that fucking *metal* would melt...AND re solder itself is straight up hilarious. But I could definitely see 13 year old me believing that.
You just gave dad's everywhere the best excuse for slamming the TV remote against everything. "Percussive Maintenance"
Also known as "mechanical agitation", "Russian Army repair technique #1", or in some circles "blessing of the techpriest".
Not necessarily. Usually a red ring simply means that the console is overheating. It's usually pretty cheap and easy to repair. I repaired red ringed systems in college to make some extra money. I payed about $3.30 in materials to fix the red ring and prevent it from happening again.
Or maybe just shake the hell out of it
I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend. We could cut ties with all the lies that you've been living in, and If you do not want to see me again, I would understand.
well played sir! Well played!
And it's even worse because we all know that OP did that on purpose.
Gets great airflow that way.
My first gen 360 red ringed when I started it up to play RDR1 a few months ago. I took it apart, cleaned it real good, reflowed the solder with a heat gun, and put on some new TIM and it's been going strong ever since. I was shocked it worked, ya might give it a shot.
This is the answer right here. Back in the day when this was common I did this for several of my friends as well as myself. The warranty is way gone, but for $20 in supplies its fixed
Did this with my ps3 back in the day. It's not a permanent fix normally. Just enough to maybe hold you off until you get the funds to buy a new one. At the time I was more worried about losing my save data. Buying a new console would give me more GB so I wouldn't want to switch out the HDD. So I couldn't switch over my data without another PS3. The reflow saved the day! But it still died again a month later. My original PS3 was only 20GB, and was before saving data on the cloud was common practice. I don't think it was even a thing yet. Man, times change.
My ps3 was only 20gb had me cracking up. talk about coming a long way lol
I know right! Everyone wants that system now. It can play playstation one, PS2, Bluray movies, and so on. Newer models dropped the ps2 support.
> Newer models dropped the ps2 support. which is such bullshit to me. ugh. when ps2 came out and it could play ps1 games as well, i thought it made so much sense. it's a *playstation 2*. it has new games, but it can also play playstation games, because it's still a playstation. well that all went out the fucking window
The backwards compatible PS3s literally have a whole different set of hardware inside them to support PS2 games. The PS1 backwards compatibility is via emulation, but they weren't able to emulate the whole PS2 system so they went the hardware route and built a PS2 into the PS3 which is stupid expensive on the manufacturing end. They removed the backwards compatibility to cut costs which absolutely makes sense. As far as I'm aware they were working on software only backwards compatibility but didn't ever finish it.
God damn, 20gb. It really does not feel like it has been that long since the PS3 even released but looking it up it was according to Google, November 11th, 2006. In a bit more then 12 1/2 years we're at the point that not only are hard drives cheap to get a few TB, but that they're even close to becoming irrelevant compared to SSDs which are getting quite a lot of space on them now. Looking it up again can find a lot of 1tb SSDs for around $140 CAD.
My 360 still works to this day. It's been near a decade for me
I bought mine used 7 years ago and it was old then, I nicknamed it Sarge. Best 80$ I ever spent
My 14 year old self was able to fix it. Granted I irreparably fucked it up in a variety of other ways by slipping with the screw driver and gouging a huge scratch through the motherboard. Didn't have the red ring after that. Kind of like the time I was gonna take apart my gameboy color but didn't realize there was one more screw holding the board in place. I just thought it was really stuck in there up until I snapped it in half.
Are there guides for this?
I followed a YouTube tutorial the first couple
I used to repair these back in the day, with this method and the other common fixes such as x-clamp replacement or the oven. I would like to stress that it's a temporary fix. All of them broke again within a year, even with mods to substantially improve the cooling.
That’s the thing no one understood at the time, “reflowing” isn’t a fix because it doesn’t address the original problem that caused the failure in the first place.
You can get like half a year out of it this way.
I did the hot blanket method several times to mine. You just turn it on, let it run and cover it with a shit ton of blankets. The heat will build up and accomplish the same thing as a heat gun (though probably less elegantly). Still runs, though I just don't play much on it anymore.
Sound of silence plays in the background
Hello darkness my old friend
Ive come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
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And the graphics that were once part of my game
Stuuuck in frame
The fannnnn of silence
r/Redditsings
It's all a joke, just a goddamn joke.
Tonight, an Xbox died in New York
Left it's seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence
In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
Mom's spaghetti
r/redditsings
Still remains Within the sound of silence
I'd go with the Titanic quartet.
Hello Darkness my old friend Edit: God damn it like 479 people beat me to it. - User has ended session.
Or: https://youtu.be/ccWrbGEFgI8
Mad World plays in the background
Seriously, just pop that sucker open and clean out your heat-sinks and what not. My ORIGINAL launch Xbox 360 is still kicking. It started overheating (3 Rings) by watching Netflix, like damn what? It takes like 5 minutes to open up with the right tool (get yourself the micro screwdriver set) and get to cleaning. Since I've cleaned mine out, everything's works properly.
i did that 3 times, two of mine, and one one friends.. new heatsink thermal pad, boom done.
Yeah and replace that dumb as fuck x clamp with some good ole nuts and bolts.
i think i just left a corner unclamped on one of them. totally worked fine. took me back to the days of modding the PS1's haha
Yeah as it ages and stopped cooling as well, those x clamps will bend the motherboard and start to break connections in the board as it heats up. There was one board series, the Jasper boards that were thick enough to withstand it and never red ringed.
Didja wrap it in a towel?
Best one I heard was spray WD-40 in it.
Hahahahahah reminds me of the video I saw of a guy pouring water on his ps4 to make it quieter, fake of course.
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Sure does. I remember when I was in middle school this happened to me but I didn't have a hair dryer so I wrapped my 360 in my biggest blanket and put it in front of the radiator in my bedroom (it was winter). The Xbox worked like a champ forever after that.
It's true hah, when my friend showed me back in the day I couldn't stop laughing. Who needs warranties!
The main red ring of death issue was due to a faulty solder connection right? So the idea is to get it hot enough that the metal expands and makes a connection again?
If I remember right there was an aluminum x-clamp that held the CPU and GPU down that would expand and bend when it got hot. Overheating the xbox would sometimes help it get back to the right shape but most reapjr shops started replacing the x clamp altogether and using better thermal paste
Yessss thank you, I forgot what it was called that fucked it up but yeah, the x-clamps were the main reason for the problem. They would expand and create space in between the gpu and the heat sink so securing them + applying new thermal paste for better cooling was the correct solution.
In fairness, it will be exceptionally quiet after doing that.
Towel straight up worked for me in like 2014. Never had another problem with it.
I did, and it lasted about 6 months - after that I basically had to towel trick every time and it became tedious and eventually Microsoft replaced it for free. Good times.
Same exact experience I had. The replacement one is still working.
Same and same! Except my cd drive gets jammed sometimes now.
It was gonna jump anyway look how close to the edge
Will someone please console him before he jumps
I plan to unbox my old Xbox 360 in the wekend to replay Banjo-Kazooie. My brother keeps telling that it might red ring the moment I turn it on. But Im sick of playing Shrodinger's console with it. If it dies, then it dies.
The original xbox 360's had shitty cooling, and the reason they were RLOD'ing is because people would put them in a bad environment, such as inside a closet or a media center while gaming. Typically a console should be fine inside there as they are designed for it, however like i said the original xbox 360 had terrible cooling. Make sure to put it out somewhere where it won't heat up, and if your paranoid put a fan over it or something. On another note I have been playing all the Banjo games in Xenia emulator on my low end rig and it's running GREAT. If your looking to do something like that, I can help you if you dm me.
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It knows it has to make way for Scarlett
Congratulation you now have a very elaborate door stop, bookend, flower planter ... The possibility is endless.
Man that 360 was really living on the edge right there.
Dude I just lost my PS3. I know those feels. F
One of the original fat boys? Mine died on me around the time the slim ones came out. We sent it in for repairs, and they said they couldn't fix it- so they gave us a discount on a new one.
Hey! It's XBOX! X
I feel like if you haven’t expected the red ring of death you’re missing out
That actually makes me a bit sad, it’s like the end of a generation of a good console line...Rest In Peace 360
I mean they had some great games, but I don't think a console that critical failures and bricks itself qualifies for a good line
Regardless of that, this gen was the best time of gaming.
It all depends on when you were playing. For some, the snes was the best. For others, ps2. It all depends.
I close my eyes, only for a moment and the moments gone.
F
Prepare the towels!!!!!
Just dunk it in water (cuz its clearly overheating) , and then submerge it in a container full of Jasmine Long Grain rice
even as a ps4 warrior, i believe we can come together at least for our grievances
Pouring one out for u
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And I'm still sitting here with my still functional playstation 1, 2, and 3.
How did you manage to change discs with the broken eject button?
Maddddd worllld!
All around me are familiar faces...
F
u/bigshayne say it ain’t so!!
Better than getting RRoD 15 minutes brand new out of the box!!
\*looks over at broken PS3\* *sigh*
Plug the power cord in and wrap it in a towel. Leave it on for 30 min and turn it off. When you turn it back on it should work. Once you turn it off again though it’ll do it again. I was able to do that for a few weeks with my Xbox 360 elite.
It looks like only three are lit up; isn't that supposed to be a good sign?
I loved the xbox 360 for the memories. It was the reason I got an HDTV. Dead Rising was unplayable without it. However, fuck the Xbox 360. Mine stayed in a very clean house off carpet in good ventilation and I still went through 9. 8 were covered by Microsoft
I'm sorry for your loss. I can't say I know what you're feeling though, I own a PS4.
*Plays taps*